The present invention relates to an inspection apparatus for a substrate having micro patterns thereon such as a semiconductor wafer or a liquid crystal panel.
For example, semiconductor devices are fabricated by repeatedly transferring a pattern, formed as a photo-mask, on a semiconductor wafer through lithography processing and etching processing. Because whether or not lithography processing and etching processing are performed successfully and whether or not foreign matter is generated in the semiconductor device fabrication stage largely affect the fabrication yield of semiconductors, it is necessary to detect the generation of abnormal conditions or defects as soon as possible or in advance. To meet this need, a pattern on a semiconductor wafer is inspected during the fabrication stage using a beam or an electron beam. (JP-A-2000-161932).
Conventionally, the screen function of a wafer external view inspection apparatus is not fully utilized. This means that the execution of the wafer external view inspection is not necessarily easy and the inspection is not convenient. In addition, during the semiconductor inspection, an extremely large number of defects are detected when the process is started and, in some cases, more than hundreds of thousands of defects are detected. In such a case, all defects cannot be checked. When such a large number of defects are detected, it is very important to create a recipe so that those defects can be efficiently fed back to the semiconductor fabrication process.